Ten Suns: A Chinese Legend

The ten sons - who are also suns - of eastern emperor Di Jun, the god who rules the skies, grow bored with their regimented and solitary duties in this Chinese folktale, leading to a crisis on the earth below. Each day, one of the sons/suns must make his way across the sky, giving light and heat to the world below, but this journey is made alone, and never varies. One day the eldest and youngest son/sun decides that all ten of them will walk across the sky together, leading to catastrophe on earth, as crops wither, seas dry and people perish. Finally, Di Jun must call in the great archer Hu Yi to shoot down his sons, and save the world...

I enjoyed Ten Suns: A Chinese Legend quite a bit, finding Eric A. Kimmel's retelling engaging and show more YongSheng Xuan's illustrations lovely. The story was already familiar to me, although I am better acquainted with the version in which the archer Hu Yi (sometimes Hou Yi) is rewarded with immortality (or a potion for immortality) as a result of his actions in shooting the suns. In this version, Hou Yi's wife, Chang-E, consumes the potion instead, becoming the lady in the moon. This story is central to the folklore associated with the Chinese Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. By contrast, Hu Yi is already immortal in this telling, and the story concludes with the shooting down of the suns, containing no reference to Chang-E and what happened afterward. I really enjoyed seeing another side to the story of Hou Yi and Chang-E, one which explains why the suns were all proceeding across the sky in the first place. The illustrations here, as mentioned, were quite beautiful. Recommended to young folklore enthusiasts, and to readers interested in traditional Chinese tales. show less

Right off the back , the illustrations were breathtaking and in an ornate, oriental style that really seemed to jump off the page.The attention to detail used to describe the settings and the illustrations depicting the different parts of the Chinese Legend of the Ten Suns were breathtaking. The story focuses on the disobedience of the ten suns as they recklessly crossed the sky together, burning the earth. When their father saw this and told them to come back to the heavens and they continued to disobey him, he had no choice but to have them STOPPED, my means of turning them into crows. The story focuses heavily on the consequences of the disobedience by the children towards their parents, a concept that can run deep in various Asian show more cultures. show less

Ten Suns is an old Chinese myth about how the one sun came about. It is a great fantasy for children. It teaches them to listen even of they do not understand what an adult is saying. The book also illustrates the there are reactions to everyone's action.

I dunno. Normally I love Kimmel, and some of the pix in this are enchanting. Others are odd, and the story is very illogical & strange, at least to my Western sensibility. I really can't find anything to like about it enough to give it more than "it was ok" two stars. There is a brief author's note for the sources.

A Chinese legend of how the world ended up with only one sun. I liked this story and my daughter enjoyed the pictures. She thought the muscle man was pretty. I did find out that this in one of the oldest legends in the Chinese culture, which I think is awesome!!

Oh my - the graphic artists have nothing on the depiction of HuYi, the Archer in Heaven. Gives up rather easily when he is missing the final arrow.

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